HUMPDAY

Guy’s review...

Ben and Andrew are best friends. Two different people, Ben has settled down and is about to start a family. Andrew is in the “it” crowd and tries to have as much fun as possible. One night, Ben goes with Andrew to one of his parties. Here they find out about an artsy porn festival. A festival where porn is trying to come as close to art as possible. Ben and Andrew think that two straight men having sex would be very artistic. The seed is planted and the two best friends decide to do it.

What I liked about this movie is that they seemed like regular people even though some of the acting was shitty, but I guess the common Joe with no training is a shitty actor. It has a great setup and is full of “real” conversations about who we are and what we are trying to be. I found myself really listening to what they were saying.

This doesn’t sound very funny at all. I assure you, it is. There’s a moment in the movie where you’ll cover your face to sheld yourself from the awkwardness. It’s just real stuff that’ll make you smile.

Guy’s Rating: A great indie that gives a little bit of hope to filmmakers, so watch it.

Girl's hump thoughts...

This movie didn't just make me cover my face once, to shield myself from the awkwardness. It felt like I watched this whole movie with fingers framing it's edges, it was so awkward.

First, it was the acting. Ben, the guy with the wife and the house and the white picket fence, is a horrible actor to watch. I hated his every mannerism, his every "deep" rant, his very existence bothered me. I hope this actor isn't like that in real life, because people like that should be shot. His wife was almost no better. Although she didn't annoy me nearly as much, it was probably more to do with the fact she had less camera time and therefore didn't get to talk about her annoying self. Still, when she got drunk with Andrew to become buddies with him, I was shielding my eyes from her "drunk" acting skills. Andrew was the only shinning star in this movie concerning the acting. Although stupidity does run from his mouth like a river at times, he still has he redeeming qualities: the crazy laugh he has, the fact he actually smiles (huge), and that he seems generally innocent of all the fake anxiety Ben tries to act out.

If this movie had ended any other way, I doubt I would have enjoyed it as much as I did. The fact the last note of the movie was on Andrew was a blessing. Whoever wrote that part into the script did the right thing. In the end, Ben and his wife were the supporting characters, although it doesn't seem that way for most of the film. It was Andrew's story that was the most interesting, therefore it was definitely right for the movie to end on him.

Girl's Rating: Awkward, independent cinema with border-line horrible acting on two out of three parts... I recommend this film, even though I don't know if I liked it yet.

HALO: LEGENDS

Guy’s segmented thoughts...

So first me and Girl watched a segmented movie based on the not yet released videogame “Dante’s Inferno”. Now the turn has come to “Halo”. So this time they took a bunch of animators/directors from japan and gave them free rome on the “Halo” franchise. I wish I could say that all shorts was amazing, but they weren’t. A couple of similar projects are already out there, the “Batman” collaborations and the “Animatrix” collection. So unfortunately I have to compare these a little bit, only because the predecessors were a tad better.

The biggest difference to me is probably the quality control. It almost feels like they struggled this time to get all the directors in place. Only because some of the shorts are not to par with a collection like this and are almost instantly forgotten after watching it. For example the fuzzy looking short where the aliens where fighting each other... meh.

The best short out of all of them was clearly “The Babysitter”. Everything from the story to the animation was everything you could wish for in something like this and they had a great twist on the myth that is Master Chief.

Guy’s Rating: Watch only if you’re a superfan of the Halo games.

Girl's review...

Like I said in my Dante's Inferno review, these video game adaptations are only as good as their visuals. Out of the ten or so segments, I remember two.

One of the two was "The Babysitter". The visuals, although nothing dramatically different than the rest, were drawn with obvious talent. Nothing was hasty in their creation, and the twist on Master Chief's character was an appealing explanation mark on this segment.

The other segment I remembered for how bad it was. It created a charactiture of Halo, and for some random reason, Dragon Ball-Z. Maybe there is some connection there I am not privy, too, but watching it, it seemed pretty stupid.

Girl's Rating: Forgettable. Absurd. Childish. A mockery of a good franchise. Need a reason not to watch this? I have many.

MR 73

Guy’s review...

As a Swede I’m plagued every year by stupid and boring cop dramas/thrillers. Why can’t we just look a little bit to the south and steal at least a couple of ideas from the French? I mean, they have movies like this on and “Crimson Rivers” that are bleak, dirty and deal with some real shit.

This movie is about an alcoholic cop that is still dealing with the death of his child and now-brain-damaged wife. He gets a case with a serial killer that binds and rapes woman. His cop instincts are rekindled and he sets off to find the guy who did it. There’s a side story here about a girl that watched her mother and father get killed when she was a young child. Now her parents' killer is set to be released. The old cop (Schneider) is linked to the young women cause he was the one assigned to the case. Well, she finds him and now he has to deal with that as well.

This movie is very dark and almost too long to bear, but certain scenes keep you in there. I’m a big fan of French cinema and even a low budget movie like this will certainly find an audience. I liked it although I zoned out at some moments. Oh, I almost forgot. There’s a huge cat in this movie, I mean huge.

Guy’s Rating: If you like cop dramas, then you’ll like this.

Girl's blah review...

I liked the movie Seven. That movie was an awesome cop drama, and I compare all cop dramas I see to it. This movie doesn't come close to being on par with the twisted story of Seven.

It seems like, in this film, they used all the cheap tricks of any drama. How do we make the main character at his lowest? We kill his daughter and maim his wife beyond repair, of course, and give him alcohol. How do we make him hit rock bottom? Why, kill his partner because of a choice our hero makes! Duh! And now, how do we make it all better? He kills the bad guy and the cliche bad cop. Finally, as we have been pretty stereotypical up to this point, how do we make this ending one they won't forget? We get the protagonist to kill his bed-ridden wife, kill himself, and then have the side character, who is abstractly connected to him, give birth to a new baby who she names after our dead hero. Perfect! Give these people a ridiculous sum of money to make this film.

Girl's Rating: You could at least try to impress the audience.

DANTE'S INFERNO

Guy’s la la la, swoosh...

“Dante’s Inferno” is a animated movie that is based on the video game that hasn’t even come out yet. Dante works as a knight of the templar. When he comes home one day he finds his dying wife Beatrice. She dies but as she ascends to heaven, Lucifer shows up and steals her soul. Dante goes to hell to get her soul back. In hell, he has to fight though the nine circles of hell to find his beloved.

The movie in general feels a little bit lazy and waries in quality. The quality is different because every segment (rings of hell) are animated by different artists. Some good and some are actually very good. It seems for some reason that they took the plot of the game and squeezed it down to 90 minutes. This is probably the reason why the movie feels so weak. Girl is more in to fantasy so you’ll get a better reason from her to watch it or not.

Guy’s Rating: Seems like the game might be better.

Girl's hrmm...

This movie was pornographic and brutal. What it lacks in story, it made up in violent imagery. I'm not complaining, however. You watch a movie about a decent into Hell, and this is what I would expect to see. But, this movie is not for children. In fact, if you show this movie to children, you should reconsider whether you deserve to live. Some of the images drawn in this anime would disturb adults, let alone the vulnerable, developing mind of a child. That's how seriel killers are born.

Still, I enjoyed most segments of this film. Some artists were awful, depicting characters that looked too much like the stuff out of Pokemon (which I enjoy in it's own Saturday morning slot, but is not appropriate for the City of Dis), and some artists were fantastic in their illustration of a man deteriorating against the evil Lucifer puts him against.

To make or break any video game adapted movie, whether it be an animation or not, it comes down to visuals. Resident Evil was awesome because it had the beautiful heroine and some pretty wicked zombie attack scenes. Final Fantasy, in it's time, looked spectacular. It still does, in my opinion. A fun fact! I had my first kiss during Final Fantasy: Spirt Within. Ah, the romance! Final Fantasy: Advent Children, complete with an actual story-line that could tie into the video game, was also spectacular. And, although some segments of Dante's Inferno did not impress, enough of them did to make this movie worth watching.

Girl's Rating: If you like seeing movies with your favorite video game characters in them, then you will like this animation. If you aren't a fantasy geek, don't watch this and save us the annoyance of your superior judgement.

K-20: THE LEGEND OF THE MASK

Guy’s unmasked view,,,

First off, I don’t know about the title for this movie. I guess it works if they release more than one. A lot of Asian movies have been plauged by bad titles throughout history but they have still found their place on the white screen.

So what is this movie about. Heikichi Endo (Kaneshiro) is a master acrobat working in a small circus. The city he lives in is terrorised by a theif called K-20 aka the fiend with 20 faces. In the beginning of the movie K-20 steals one of Nikola Tesla’s machines. A machine that can create lightning. We find out that the machine he stole is just a small version of another machine that is hidden within the city. Now security is high and it gets harder for K-20 to steal the remaining pieces to find the larger device. Therefor he frames Endo as the the real K-20. A race starts for Endo where he needs to learn the art of theivery, clear his name, find K-20 and stop him from using Tesla’s machine to dominate the world.

This all sound super exciting and a great plot for a Asian movie. There’s a lot of action where we see Kaneshiro scaling building like Batman and fighting of baddies. This is sadly a very small part of the movie. There are more scenes o Kaneshiro walking in the raining, talking to the poor and falling for a princess. It just seems like they tried to fit to much in to a story that should be more action based.

I’m a fan of Asian cinema and I’m waiting for another golden era of that type of movies. It has been a cold period but this is certainly a step in the right direction. It’s fun, inventive and something that’s different from other action movies.

Guy’s Rating: A step in the right direction for us that love the genre.

Girl's small review...

This movie and Goemon blurred into one movie for me, even though they are fairly different. For one, this movie did not hurt my eyes nearly so much. Still, it seemed like a simplistic story, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, made gaudy by too many special effects and twists.

The one thing about this movie that pulled it up from it's near doom was the acting. It wasn't too over the top, although the comedy bordered on slap-stick at times. The characters weren't overly deep, nor were they one-stop-shops. Other than the ending, which was so cliche and dramatic I wanted to scream, I generally enjoyed their story and interaction.

Girl's Rating: If they make a second one, I will watch it. I guess that says something for this one.

LARGO WINCH

Guy’s thoughts on european action...

Clean, clean, clean. Keep the story clean. This is something Americans seem to have forgotten about when it comes to their action movies. They had it, don’t get me wrong. I love “Lethal Weapon”, “Die Hard” and “Beverly Hills Cop” cause they have a good simple storyline, great action and likeable characters. This movie has just that a guy that you can learn to root for, some simple plot points and some kick ass adrenaline action.

So Largo Winch was the beginning a Belgian comic book (yay! they can jump on the bandwagon). But it was not one of those shooting-flames-out-of-their-eyes-jumping-roof-to-roof kind of comic. The character Largo Winch was more of a James Bond type character with Bruce Wayne amounts of money.

So this is what happens. Largo Winch’s stepfather Nerio gets murdered and leaves his company and estate to him worth billions of dollars. They call him in to take over, but wait! Someone at the company want everything for herself (hmm). So she set Largo up and kills off all of his remaining family members. This makes him very angry and he outsmarts the bad guys and regains control of his company. Simple? I would say so.

The acting was better than average and Tomer Sisley (Largo) managed to look capable and a bit of a badass. There’s not many international faces in this movie but there is two. Karel Roden who seems to be the go to guy if you need a generic evil Russian and we also had Kristin Scott Thomas who usually shows up in more arty projects. At least they gave the movie some value on the international market because we all know that the American audience would hate to watch a whole movie without any poster names (bit harsh?). Well, the cast was good.

It seems like Europe might be the front runner right now when it comes to these types of movies. Not that they make more money than the shitty American ones, just that they’re better. Just look at “Taken”, “Banlieue 13”, “Crimson Rivers”, “Kiss of a Dragon” and “Brotherhood of the Wolf”. Some of these might be old by now but they all represent a steady stream of action coming out of France (many of who have Luc Besson behind them). So if you’re tired of bad American action like “The Marine”, “Shooter” or “The Condemned” then browes your foregin section for a bit.

Guy’s review: Should definitely be watched if you like a good action adventure film.

Girl's hizzah! ...

The only bad thing about this movie is that it's made by the dirty French. I'm part French so I can say that.

I love action movies. It's my favorite genre. When I was young (which wasn't very long ago, but I'm saying it nostalgically anyways) I would watch and re-watch the Die Hard series. I would go through phases on which one was my favorite. For a long time, number three was, although it definitely is number one right now by a long shot. Although Largo Winch and John McClane do not have much in common, they still get the job done when it concerns an action story.

Where John would use brute force, Largo uses his smarts. When John has almost no back story besides his wife and family, Largo's past is a huge component to his character. But! They are both handsome (yes, I find Bruce Willis handsome) and charming, and, most importantly, their moral compass always points due north. They always do what's right and needful.

Like Guy said, it's clean and simple that wins the race with action movies, and although it pains me to admit it, the French did a great job staying true to the story in this movie.

Girl's Rating: I tip my hat to you, France. You created something fun and enjoyable for once, instead of slightly insulting and pompous.

GOEMON

Guy’s epileptic afterthoughts...

I know Girl might not even wanna review this movie considering she was out of the room or writing on her computer 80 percent of the time. I still have a couple of things to say about this film, and if I write something, I’m pretty sure that Girl will have one or two thoughts.

Goemon, as many people know, is a famous character in Japan. He’s pretty much their version of Robin Hood. Or is Robin Hood a version of Goemon? Who cares as they are both pretty cool. Other historical figures in this movie are Nobunaga and Toyotomi, two men I learned about by playing the famous Capcom game Omnimusha (I need a new edition for my PS3, please). They are all great and have a great deal of myth surounding them which makes for good fairytales.

The guy behind this movie, Kazuaki Kiriya, who also made the visual explosion “Casshern”, might be a bit crazy. If you’re not ready for quick cuts and have a tendency to black out then this movie is not for you. It’s overwhelming at times. Everything is pretty much shot in front of a green screen and it’s amazing what a Japanese production can achieve with only a budget of 15 mill. I know it sounds like a lot but it’s not when it comes to movies in America. I think the movie looks great considering the price tag.

Story? I didn’t find it that compelling to be honest. I pretty much just kept watching for the overly red blood and extreme fight sequences.

Guy’s Rating: Not the best movie, but different. So if you want something new that you haven’t seen before (unless you saw “Casshern”) then this might be something for you.

Girl's rating...

This movie was boring and over-the-top. My eyes were tired before this film could hit the mid-point. Those are my one or two thoughts.

Girl's Rating: Meh... Fifteen million dollars, days and weeks and months in front of a green screen, and some spectacular costume design and I say just meh! Some of that money and time should have gone to a writer.